Not officially on sabbatical anymore, but still living the sabbatical life!

Thursday, 2 June 2011

See More at Seymour!

This past Sunday, we did a multi-tasking family trip over to the North Shore and Mount Seymour. I biked ahead so that I could ride my old training grounds up Mount Seymour, rising about 1000 m over 12.5 km. It's a ride I've done many times growing up and starting my cycling life here. Much to my chagrin, it looks like I've aged about 6 minutes over the past twenty years, as my time up Sunday was 53:30 and my best ever time was about 47:30. It was a great day and weather for climbing and hiking, with the temperatures about 12oC at the top of Seymour. It was also the first decent day for climbing Seymour, as the North Shore seems to have been perpetually topped with dark clouds all the past two weeks.

There have been record snowfalls here in the Vancouver mountains this past year, to the point where Grouse Mountain is still open for skiing and snowboarding all the way through to Canada Day on July 1! This picture at the parking lot of Seymour demonstrates just how much snowpack there has been.

Scenes like this really highlights how amazing a city Vancouver is, to be able to enjoy a day on the slopes and playing on the beach on the same day. We saw some people with snowshoes, snowboards, and a dog setting out for a backcountry adventure. Considering the ridiculously short ski season we have in southern Ontario and upstate New York, what a treat this would be!

From the parking lot of the ski hill atop Seymour, we went down a little bit to the Deep Cove lookoff trailhead and hit the trails. The upper trails were still snowbound, but the Old Buck Trail was amazingly beautiful. It snaked down the mountain through pristine old forests, with lots of neat nature to explore. The other adventure was a couple of bridges that were washed out, so we had to do a little river-hopping.

This rock was massive and amazing, with the moss all over it and a huge tree growing right on top of it!

The trail went straight down the mountain, which of course meant that the whole way back was uphill. At least we didn't have to do it portaging a heavy and water-logged canoe with a huge backpack like Olaf made me do in Norway!

Can never really have enough of waterfalls.

We finished our day relaxing in the village of Deep Cove, right near the base of Seymour. Trendy spot and some amazing houses and boats right next to Indian Arm. Off in the distance is Belcarra on the other side.